About noon a man was looking out of one of the upper-windows of Long's Hotel on the dreary desert of Bond Street. He was a tall man; who with straight-cut features, shapely beard, curling light hair, and clear complexion, would have been generally considered more than good-looking, notwithstanding that his eyes were comparatively small and his mouth was decidedly sensual. That he was a man of breeding and society one could have told in an instant--could have told it by the colour and shape of his hands, by his bearing, by the very manner in which he, leaving the window from time to time, lounged round the room, his hands plunged in his pockets or pulling at his tawny beard. You could have told it despite of his dress, the like of which had surely never been seen before on any visitor to that select hostelry; for he wore a thick jacket and trousers of blue pilot-cloth, a blue flannel-shirt, with a red-silk handkerchief knotted round the collar, and ankle jack-boots. When he jumped out of the cab at the door on the previous day, he had on a round tarpaulin-hat, and carried over his arm an enormous pea-jacket with horn buttons; and as he brought no luggage with him save a small valise, and had altogether the appearance of the bold smugglers who surreptitiously vend cigars and silk-handkerchiefs, the hall-porter at first refused him admittance; and it was not until the proprietor had been summoned, and after a close scrutiny and a whispered name had recognised his old customer, that the strange-looking visitor was ushered upstairs. He would have a private room, he said; and he did not want it known that he was back just yet--did Jubber understand? If any body called, that was another matter: he expected his mother and one or two others; but he did not want it put in the papers, or any thing of that kind. Jubber did understand, and left Captain Lionel Brakespere to himself.